(Bloomberg Businessweek) -- On a Friday afternoon in late 2018, children gathered on an artificial-grass pitch in Kazakhstan’s former capital of Almaty. In the distance, beyond the hangarlike buildings of their school, the Trans-Ili Alatau Mountains were snow-capped. On the other side rose the glass-walled Ritz-Carlton hotel complex. Shakira’s Hips Don’t Lie blared from the PA.